MUSIC VIDEO: Jay-Z – Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film

Last night Jay-Z took took to release the music video for Picasso Baby off his latest album Magna Carta Holy Grail.

The ten minute video did not just cover the song in itself but Jay-Z talked about a couple topics in the beginning of the video, such as concerts and the energy that comes with them.

“Concerts are pretty much performance art. The venues change. Just by nature of the venues, the performance changes. If you’re in a smaller venue, it’s a bit more intimate so you get to feel the energy of the people…In a concert, especially in a large concert, all that energy comes to you. What do you do with that energy? So, today, it’s kind of an exchange. You have somewhere to drop it back off.”

Jay-Z discussed the connection that hip hop and art really has as well:

“When art started becoming part of the galleries, it became a separation between culture and even in Hip Hop, people were almost like, ‘Art is too bourgeois. We are artists. We’re alike. We’re cousins. That’s where it’s really exciting for me, bringing the worlds back together.”

Jay-Z ends the video by sharing his outlook on Rap.

“Rap is pretty much thinking out loud,” he said in the film. “You’re talking and putting your fears and your vulnerabilities, you’re putting your bravado and your insecurities all on music and it’s there for the world to see. You’re really giving a glimpse of who you are.

Actor Judd Apatow, rapper Wale, Hip Hop pioneer Fab Five Freddy are some of the few who were involved in the performance art film.